A COMPETITIVENESS ANALYSIS OF M A J O R AIRPORTS IN ASIA USING FUZZY LINGUISTIC APPROACH Yonghwa Park The Korea Transport Institute, Seoul Korea 1. INTRODUCTION Demand for air transport in the Asia region is growing faster than in any other region in the world. Statistics complied by the ICAO shows that it grew over 10 per cent per annum during the last decade. There are no signs of this sharp increasing rate from abating and all the indications are that it will be sustained well into the 21st century. The potential for air traffic growth in this region is enormous. Positive sources such as the density of population, powerful economical growth, political stability in many countries, deregulation of air transport, and existing competitive airlines, have shed light on some illuminating statistics. According to the Airports Council International statistics (ACI, 1995), five of the top 30 busiest airports in the world, in terms of numbers of passenger handled in 1994, are situated in the Asia Region particularly North and South-East Asia. When it comes to the numbers of aircraft movements, however, not a single Asian airport features in the top 30 worldwide. This means that a greater number of passengers are being moved with fewer aircraft movements. In this case, air traffic on long-hanl routes has clearly been and will remain dominant although traffic on short-haul routes will grow at a faster rate than on long-hanl routes. Indeed, it boasts the highest ratio of wide-bodied aircraft in its airline fleets than that of any other region. Many Asian nations are undertaking the expansion project of existing airport's facilities and construction of new airports to meet its dramatically increasing demand. The ambition of almost every government in the region is to build and enhance an airport infrastructure with sufficient capacity and sophistication to become the main international hub airport. It can not be achieved to the status of air hub by not only aspiration and sudden revolution, but the complements of careful strategies and continuous efforts. In a highly competitive market of North and South-East Asia, almost all major airports are getting enormous competition to take the market-powered airport, now and in the future. It would be valuable to analyse the potential competitiveness of them in the near future when every new constructed airports will operate during the initial phase. To analyse their competitiveness, this study has adopted several factors, from the various literature reviews, which are recognised as an important elements at the airport system. Also, the fuzzy linguistic approach used and the evaluation is based on the airport experts' points of view. 2. OVERVIEW OF AIRPORT INFRASTRUCTURE IN ASIA 2.1 Constraints and Remedies The high growth rate of air demand in the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation(APEC) region is surging more air transport infrastructure to serve with high quality levels to the users. Since late 1980s, the North and South-East Asia region has had the largest number of new airports' construction in the world. Almost every major airport in the region is currently involved in or planning expansion, renovation, or upgrading project. Therefore, many existing airports are serving very closed to capacity. Activities to stretch every available inch of capacity out of congested existing airports until new infrastructure will come on line is unprecedented, but crucial. Airspace congestion is an existing and growing problem in the Asia-Pacific Rim, especially in the Northeast Asian region. Airspace congestion issue has emerged to be the most serious threat to the growth of air traffic movement. It will bring more delays to passengers and higher fuel consumption for aircraft, which are assigned by air traffic control under optimal flight levels and flight paths. (Park et al., 1996) The existing international airspace system is unable to accommodate the growing demands placed on it by aviation operations. As the region is faced with a highly fragmented airspace network and a very wide variance in the sophistication of air traffic control systems, there must be a regional approach to the problem An outstanding research, APEC congestion points study (Maunsell, 1995), observed the constraints of airport infrastructure in the APEC region and also suggested some useful remedies to improve its system. The congestion problems and causes in the major airport in North and South-East Asia are summarised in Table 1. To improve the current and near future air transport congestion at the region's airports, there are suggested such practical solutions as: achievement of a smooth and timely transition to satellite based communications, navigation, surveillance, and air traffic management (CNS/ATM) systems in the region. achievement of fair and equitable opportunity for carriers in the market under liberalised circumstances. development of airport infrastructure without environmental obstacles. co-operation and co-ordination between the users, operators, regulators and providers of transport infrastructure and services. introduction of new technology and facilities to save the service processing time for passengers, aircraft, and freight. improvement of the productivity and efficiency of airport operations by introducing advanced equipment. the role of pricing in demand management. stimulation private sector investment at airport infrastructure and efforts toward privatisation. Table 1 : Summary of Airport Congestion Problems and Causes AIRPORT INFRASTRUCTURE OPERATIONS& REGULATORY& TECHNOLOGY INSTITUTIONAL HONGKONG/KAITAK Runway, apron, and terminal at capacity TOKYO/NARITA Single runway severely Environmental and constraints capacity ATC restriction Terminal at capacityat on nmway peak time movement SEOUL/KIMPO Runway, aircraft parking, Passenger and baggage Environmental gates and temtinal close processing restriction and to capacity Inefficient airlines ATC limitation allocation at terminals by DMZ BANGKOK]DONM UANO Runwayand terminal close to capacitya t peak hours SINOAPORE/CHANGI Lack of gate capacity at peak hours TAIPEffCHIANOKaI SHEK Lack of apron capacity for overnight parking BEIJ1NG/CAPITAL Terminal at capacity Severe passenger processing delays Source : Maunsell, A P E C Congestion Points Study - Phase 11, draft final report, 1995. 2.2 Development Plans Over the last few years, the major airports in North and South-East Asia has been operating at or close to their capacity. As a result, Korea, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia took the decision to expedite the development of new airports. In September 1994, the new Kansai Airport in Japan opened and other new airports in the region will operate within the end of the 20th century. In particular, New Seoul Metropolitan Airport which has been renamed as Inchon International Airport, Maiaysia's new international gateway at Sepang serving Kuala Lumpur, and Nong Ngu Hao, the so-called Cobra Swamp, as the second Bangkok International Airport, will be built in phases, with an ultimate planned capacity of 100 million passengers per annum. Other new airport projects such as Chek Lap Kok in Hong Kong, Shanghai's Pudong in East China, and Kansai in Japan were launched with passenger handling capacities ranging from 40 to 80 million per year. Kansai Airport had already completed the first phase in September 1994. In Korea, the air transport industry took a major leap forward in the late 1980s with the liberalisation of overseas travel and deregulation of air transport market. In Seoul metropolitan area alone, air traffic has increased by an average of 12.9% a year between 1985 and 1994 and is expected to continually grow by an annual average of approximately 9% by year 2000. The current national gateway airport, Kimpo Airport, is situated close to the capital city of Seoul and currently operates at limit capacity. Therefore, the Korean government has decided to built a new off-shore airport in Youngjong island. The first phase of the project is scheduled for completion in 2000. It is expected to cost US$ 4.98 billion and will have the capacity to handled 27 million passengers and 1.7 million tonnes cargo a year. With the completion of the final phase of development, the new airport will be able to handle up to 100 million passengers, 7 million tonnes cargo, and 530,000 aircraft operations per annum (KOACA, 1994). China is the fastest growing economy and largest numbers of population and scale of territory. However, the aviation market in China remains hugely under-developed and only a tiny percentage of the country's enormous population travels by air. As progress towards much more open market economy continues, air traffic can be expected to continue its unprecedented levels of growth as the population becomes increasingly affluent and air travel becomes an utility accessible to a much larger percentage of the populace. As the cost factor becomes less of a constraint to growth, the spotlight is being focused on airport infrastructure as the major hurdle and there is growing awareness that demand will all too rapidly outstrip available capacity(Paylor, 1994). The major programmes of the existing airport's modernisation, expansion, and improvement of facilities and new airport development are being implemented across the country, especially in capital area, South and East China. Shanghai's Pudong New Airport will be a top grade international airport which is scheduled for completion in 2005. Japan is one of the largest air transport markets in the world even though it has a compact population. Also, Japan has extraordinary geographical characteristic of only 30 per cent of the land area being fiat. Hence, it is strongly restricted from developing airports in suitable land area. The major international airports in Tokyo and Osaka had faced environmental considerations, including noise pollution. As a result, Kansai has been constructed on a man-made island 5 kilometres off-shore in Osaka Bay. This is the first sea-reclaimed airport in the world. The first phase of development gives a capacity of 30 million passengers a year and 160,000 aircraft movements.